


[exit, pursued by a bear]

by Sparrows



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Perc'ahlia Vacation, and bears are once more bad news, in which percy is a history nerd, minor feywild spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 18:43:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7768909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparrows/pseuds/Sparrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy and Vex go explore some ruins and find more than they'd bargained for.</p>
<p>Written for the "Perc'ahlia Vacation" fic trade on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	[exit, pursued by a bear]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mangocianamarch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangocianamarch/gifts).



> What is the Perc'ahlia Vacation? Simple. It's a Secret Santa-esque event, except instead of giving gifts, you send your target some setting prompts they use to write a fic! My prompts, given by tumblr user ledamemangociana, were "in a cell", "up a tree", and "in some ruins". I chose the third and wrote this.

Vex watches Percy run his fingers over the carvings, brushing away moss as he goes and mouthing the words to himself. The group had camped out near the old ruins and both Vex and Percy had been curious enough about them to go investigate - Percy because he’s frankly a bit of a  _ nerd _ , Vex because she wasn’t tired enough to sleep and because ruins generally meant treasure.

No treasure as of yet, but Percy’s having the time of his life. Vex is slightly disappointed with the lack of treasure, though she’s rather enjoying just watching Percy as he puzzles his way through all sorts of things.

“This is definitely an older form of Elvish,” he says without looking away from the old stone. “Older than any form I’ve studied… though there  _ are _ enough similarities that I can - oh, look, here,” he continues, shifting smoothly into a few lines of the ancient Elvish.

It’s a lilting, fluid tongue, not as flat-out musical as Celestial but just as beautiful. Vex’s brow furrows as she tries to connect the words being spoken with her own understanding of the language - she catches words here and there that share similar patterns to those she knows, but on the whole she’s surprised to find just how  _ much _ the language seems to have changed in the thousands of years it has been spoken.

She quirks an eyebrow. “Care to translate?” Vex asks, stepping over the scattered rubble on the ground to join him. Even when she squints at the plaque he’s inspecting she can’t make heads or tails of it. Bloody elves and their ancient writing systems.

Percy hums thoughtfully, passing his fingers over the rest of the words in silence. Here and there the plaque’s been damaged, chunks of stone missing and leaving entire words gne or only half-finished. “It’s hard to get a word-to-word translation,” he muses as he comes to the end of the carvings. He looks up at Vex and grins, eyes humorous and playful behind his glasses. “But either it’s talking about a guardian of the temple, or a pet bear.”

“You’re kidding,” Vex says flatly. “There’s no way that’s  _ actually _ what it says.”

Percy, still grinning, taps two fingers against a phrase - broken in half by a jagged crack in the stone but apparently still legible. “ _ Fearsome protector _ ,” he reads, then points to several more phrases in turn. “It mentions  _ claws to rend the unworthy _ \- or something like that, anyway - and  _ rage of the wild _ . From the phrasing it  _ sounds  _ like they’re describing a bear, but there’s also a, mm. Possessive sense to it?” He frowns, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

Vex’s ears twitch. Something in the forest rumbles.

“Percy?” she says warily, glancing down - but he’s already gotten distracted by the writing again, sounding it out under his breath, and he makes no sign he’s actually heard her. “Percival,” she tries again, touching his shoulder. This time he looks up at her.

The rumble gets closer. Vex hears some distant  _ crash _ and takes a deep breath. “Quick question, darling: does this lovely writing of yours mention, oh, I don’t know, who the  _ unworthy _ might be?”

Percy glances back at the writing, flipping one of the smaller lenses of his glasses down over his eye. He pokes at one of the markings and answers, “Intruders, I would assume. Or non-believers, perhaps; this  _ was _ a temple at some point although I don’t know to which--”

Vex looks out towards the forest and curses at the series of crashes and the sound of falling trees, crushed vegetation; up close she recognises the loping stride. “I don’t know and I don’t care,” she says, yanking Percy up by the shoulder with a mild squawk of indignation from him. “We need to  _ go. _ ”

The gargantuan bear that comes crashing out into the ruins is much,  _ much _ bigger than the spirit Vex and Keyleth had found in the Feywild, though Vex feels some twinge of kinship that tells her it is much the same  _ kind _ of creature. Even without rearing onto its hind legs, it would easily equal if not surpass the size Grog can reach when he uses the Knuckles; its vast form seems ethereal, made of smoke and starlight, a pale, fresh-bloomed-leaf kind of green in colouration.

This Vex sees in the space of an instant as she turns and runs, Percy’s hand clenched fast in hers. The bear follows, roaring in ancient fury at them, its bulky body passing harmlessly through the old, overgrown stone when Vex turns to look.

“I think  _ we’re _ the intruders!” Vex yells, skidding as she and Percy round a corner. “I really  _ hate _ spirit bears!” she adds a moment later. She keeps her stride long, her pace quick, a lifetime spent navigating the forest providing some useful intuition when it comes to leading them both out of the ruins.

Percy’s hand slides out of her grip. She hears him yelp briefly, hears the tell-tale  _ whumph _ of a body hitting the ground, hears his wheeze as the air’s knocked from him and his muffled grunt of pain right after, but it’s several paces more before she can slow herself enough to turn around.

The guardian stands over Percy, ghostly lips drawn back in a snarl. It dwarfs him, bathes him in a sickly light as he rolls onto his back, propping himself up with his hands. Vex is close enough that she can perfectly see the look of horror on Percy’s face. He scrambles backwards in a clumsy, panicked crab-like crawl, staring upwards.

Vex bolts towards him without even consciously doing it; it’s an automatic reflex, hurling herself forward because he’s in danger and she can’t let anything happen to him. She hooks her arms under his shoulders and  _ heaves _ until he’s standing again, then quickly ducks under his arms so that she can loop one of them around her shoulders.

The bear’s still advancing and she wastes no time in bolting once more; she’d heal him but that takes time, time they don’t have while an angry spirit is chasing them. They’re slower, now, Percy hopping along on his uninjured ankle and trying to keep up with Vex’s speed.

“I was right on both counts,” he says with a weak laugh, eyes focused on the ground as he hops forward. “Pet bear. Temple guardian. Why not -  _ ow _ \- both?”

Vex has to laugh at that despite the situation, her own eyes scanning ahead for any sign of the path they’d taken into the ruins. Finally they break towards it, half-stumbling as they stagger out of the grand archway that must have once been the temple grounds’ main entrance.

The sound of footfalls continues and Vex pulls Percy forward again, but he’s stopped, transfixed. The bear slows, comes to a stop directly behind the archway, and watches them with glowing golden eyes. That same shivering sense of kinship strikes her again and Vex drops her gaze to the amulet around her neck, lifting the fingers of her free hand to brush the jewel.

The bear grunts, still staring them down, and disperses in a soft shower of starlit dust. Percy and Vex both heave a sigh of relief, lowering to the ground.

“Well, that was interesting,” Vex murmurs, carefully trying to take Percy’s boot off so she can get at his ankle; it’s probably sprained, perhaps broken depending on how hard he fell over. He flinches and hisses at the wiggling movements.

“It just wanted us gone,” he says after a few moments, voice ragged around the edges but still with a tone of wonder. Ever the scholar, even when chased by a bear. His glasses are askew but he makes no move to adjust them. “Listen, Vex’ahlia - thank you for coming back for me.”

He says it so softly, so uncertainly, that Vex freezes, his boot in one hand and the other wrapped carefully around his ankle. He says it like her aid was something unexpected. She drops her gaze to his foot, drawing on the wilderness all around them to channel healing energy into his ankle.

When the spell fades, Vex lets go of his boot and his ankle and carefully shuffles around until she’s seated next to him. Then she leans forward, wrapping her arms around his chest and holding tight. “I would  _ never _ leave you behind,” she mumbles into his shoulder. “Never.”

Percy’s own arms wrap around her, warm across her back. His fingers tangle in the back of her hair, pulling her in close, and she feels a brief moment of pressure against the top of her head. “Thank you,” he murmurs, and then pulls away to look at her with a wry smile. “Now, let’s go tell the others what happened. I’m not sure Scanlan’s going to believe us.”

Vex laughs at that, waiting until Percy’s put his boot back on before helping him to his feet. “I’m not so sure I believe it, and  _ I _ saw the damn thing face-to-face.”

And if she holds onto his hand on the way back, if she leans into his side, if she lingers on the way his arms had felt around her - then really, that’s nobody’s business but her own.


End file.
